“They’ve got names,” Mezentius said, his voice rising. “Gaius Castra and Publius Nemon Filius.”
“Thank you, Sergeant Major, that’ll do,” Lieutenant Cornovius said quietly.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but it’ll do once we find the bastards who did this,” Mezentius said.
“That’s what our esteemed guest is here to help us with, Sergeant Major,” Major Severus declared. “So try and keep a lid on it for the time being.”
“Sir, yes sir, sorry sir.”
“Filia,” Major Severus said. “What can you tell me?”
Miranda crouched down beside the bodies, feeling her leg start to ache as she did so, doing her best to ignore the throbbing pain. “I doubt there’s much I can say that you haven’t worked out for yourselves. Gaius and Publius,” she glanced at the Sergeant Major as she said their names. “Were held down – though I can’t see any sign that they were restrained, which is interesting.”
“Why?” Cornovius asked.
“Because it means that they weren’t tied down, nailed down or anything of that sort,” Miranda replied. “Someone bodily held them down.”
“Are you sure it was someone,” Cornovius said. “It couldn’t have been some kind of animal? Wolves, maybe?”
“The only wolves I know can split armour like that carry swords, sir,” Optio Gabinius said, with the contempt for his lieutenant clear in his voice. Another of the veteran soldiers, Gabinius had done something to win some honour or other that entitled him to wear a wolf pelt, covering his helmet and falling down his back so that it half looked as though a wolf were trying to bite his head off. Unlike any of the other soldiers, his cuirass was neither lorica nor mail, but black leather decorated with a silver wolf’s head on the chest. He wore a spatha at his hip, but he also carried a large two handed sword slung across his back, and he did not usually bother to carry a shield. He had none today.
“Strong men, in their prime,” Major Severus murmured. “It would take at least two men to hold each one down.”
“Unless they didn’t struggle,” Miranda said. “But I doubt that was the case. I think their tongues were cut out before they died, to stop them screaming. And they were…well, as you can see. Cut and then burned. I’m not sure what could do that.”
“You could, couldn’t you?” Mezentius demanded.
Miranda glanced up at him. “I could,” she said softly. “But I didn’t.”
“Anything else?” Severus demanded.
Miranda pressed one thumb against Gaius’ eyeball. Opening it confirmed her suspicions. “Their eyes were burnt out, along with the other organs.”
“Gods above us,” Guardsman Lucius murmured. Miranda thought he was the youngest man in the guard, though she could have been mistaken slightly, there was no mistaking his overall youth. He still had pimples marring his face, and carried himself with the awkwardness of someone who hadn’t grown into their own body yet. His face was paler than those of the other men, and he looked as though he was about to be sick.
“If you want to piss yourself, lad, do it where the rest of us can’t see you,” Gabinius said. Some of the other men chuckled at his remark, and Lucius’ cheeks reddened with embarrassment.
“Did you find their hands?” Miranda asked.
“On the statue of Prince Aeneas,” Cornovius muttered.
Miranda tried to remember which one of the many statues decorating the garden that was. “Is that…that’s the one with the scales, isn’t it?” She frowned. “What do you mean they were on the statue?”
“They’d been piled up in the bloody scales,” Sergeant Mezentius snapped.
“Weighed in the balance and adjudged,” said Guardsman Remus. He was an older soldier, his hair turned grey and his skin turned to leather beneath the sun, with a deep mark on his chin from where years of wearing a chin-strap had bitten into his flesh. But he did not swagger about, like so many of the other old soldiers did, he did not seem proud of his service. He carried himself with shoulders hunched, back bent a little, curled up as though he was trying not to be seen, with a diminutive demeanour that even the younger fellow eschewed. His voice was a deep, hoarse croak that could convey the impression of deep wisdom even when complaining about the food.
“What did you say, Remus?” Gabinius demanded, his voice acquiring an edge of anger as he turned to square off against the old guardsman. “Say that again, so that we can all hear it.”
“Optio-“ Lieutenant Cornovius began.
“Say that again!” Gabinius yelled, pushing Remus back. “Say that again and tell us what you really mean, that Gaius and Publius deserved to die!”
“They were in Oretar, the same as me,” Remus croaked. “The same as you. Or were you the only soldier to come down out those mountains with conscience clear?”
“Conscience be damned, I did what I had to do,” Gabinius snarled. “Same as every other man beneath the colours.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Remus said slowly. “But we did what we did, and it has to be paid for. We’ll all of us be called to answer for our acts, then and later and maybe before. Later, or sooner,” he added, with a glance at the two dead men.
Gabinius’ face contorted with spasm of anger as he took a step forwards, one hand reaching from the broadsword slung across his back. “Why you little-“
“That’s enough, from both of you!” Sergeant Mezentius bellowed in a voice that caused birds to fly from the trees in terror. He strode forward and placed himself between the two men, sending Gabinius staggering backwards with a shove. “Remus! Stow the pious cant until the priest comes a-calling, and keep your opinions to yourself. Gabinius! Remember you’re a soldier, not a savage, and once you’ve remembered, try to act like it!” Mezentius looked around the gathered soldiers, glowering at each of them fiercely enough that some of the young guardsmen shrank from the face of his anger. “Two men are dead! Two of our brothers have been murdered! The only people who win when we start fighting one another are the bastards who did this! So we’re going to do what we always do, which is close ranks, stand shoulder to shoulder in the line, and we’re going to find these people and we’re going to make them pay. Because we are soldiers of the Empire and that is what we do, you louts got that?”
“We’ll make them wish they’d never been born, sarge,” declared Catilina, a young soldier but one who, Miranda had noticed, was eager to be accepted into the company of the older men. But, though the declaration might have sounded ringing coming from the Sergeant Major – to some people anyway, Miranda considered herself to be immune to the appeal of such vulgar sentiments – or firm and fervent if sprung from the lips of Gabinius, coming from a downy youth who could barely fill out his armour it seemed more than a little desperate. Perhaps for that reason alone Sergeant Major Mezentius acted as though he had not spoken, but turned his back upon the boy without a word.
“Thank you, Sergeant Major,” Major Severus observed quietly. “I want all patrols doubled and I want a full report at the end of every watch. Optio Gabinius, take eight men and search the house and grounds for intruders or signs of prior intrusion.”
“Yes sir.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Filia Miranda,” Severus said. “I am afraid that you will have to be confined to your room after supper until this business is resolved, for your own protection and…security.”
Miranda climbed to her feet. “I understand, Major Severus.”
“And in the meantime, I must ask you to stay in the immediate vicinity of the house where you can be kept an eye on,” Severus added. “Guardsmen Remus and Lucius will observe you, for safety reasons.”
My safety or yours? Miranda wondered, but did not bother to ask aloud. She knew the answer already. She simply said, “Very well. Is there anything else you need me for?”
“No, thank you, Filia,” Severus said, stroking his moustache. “You may go now. Sergeant Major.”
“Sir?”
“Prepare a pyre for these men.
We’ll see them on their way as soon as possible.”
“You don’t want to wait until sunset, sir?”
“No,” Severus said. “If we get the whole guard mustered in one place for a funeral in the darkness then who knows who might slip in or out. I want it done quickly, in daylight, where a momentary lapse in patrols won’t matter so much. Well, you’ve got your orders, men, fall out and go to.”
Miranda sat on a walnut bench on the front porch, a shadow casting her in darkness, and tried to read despite the shadow obscuring the words.
It was one of the more minor effects of the new strictures upon her movement. Ordinarily she would have read in the south garden, where the sunlight was obscured by the nothing and the flowers gave the air a sweet aroma that made it a pleasant place to while away the hours. Besides, the flowers reminded her of Portia, who had loved the gardens in the palace, and that made her smile when it did not make her melancholy.
Portia.
Miranda wrested her thoughts away from that with as great an effort as a steersman turning a ship clear of some rocks as his vessel was tossed upon a stormy sea. Were her nights not enough to give over to her regrets, without them dominating all her waking hours as well? The point was…the point was…ah, yes, the point was that the gardens were now too removed from the house for the comfort of her two guards, and so she was forced to sit in the porch and squint as she tried to read the scroll in her lap.
Miranda frowned, and idly raised one hand into the air. Light, she thought, and concentrated upon the though, forming a mental image of what she wanted, how bright she wanted it, where she wanted it to go, how she wanted it to look; and then, with that thought fixed in her mind as constant as the sun which she was hoping to replicate in miniature, Miranda pulled upon her magic.
It protested all the while, like a lazy dog hauled out of the kennels for some long overdue exercise that has grown fat during its period of neglected idleness. It did not want to obey her command; it did not want to do anything. As she sought to bend it to her will, Miranda supposed that she ought to be grateful that it had only gotten lazy instead of going wild, but she equally supposed that it was an object lesson to her in not using any of her magic for two months.
Still, could she be blamed? After what she had done with it the last time, after the death and destruction that she had wreaked upon the innocent what kind of person would she have been if she had thoughtlessly continued to use magic at every turn to make her life a little easier? Besides, her guards didn’t really like the idea of her magic, it frightened them and who could blame them for that either? She found that, as much as she sometimes resented their presence, she didn’t want to do anything to alarm them either.
She hoped, as she pulled upon the magic within her with such force that her arms began to ache with sympathy, that a small display of sorcery wouldn’t alarm anyone too much.
Miranda’s hand began to tingle with a sensation like pins and needles, which Miranda supposed was appropriate enough considering the way her magic had gone to sleep through disuse. Her palm glowed white, and then a small, softly glowing ball of light appeared in front of it, floating gently into the air like a dandelion seed, coming to rest above Miranda’s head in the perfect position to illuminate the scroll that she was reading.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that, ma’am,” Lucius murmured. He was lounging in a most unmilitary fashion against one of the columns that supported the porch, his shield propped up beside his legs. “The priest says that-“
“I am well aware of all kinds of things that the Novar priests have to say about me, my power and all other such things,” Miranda said. When she was younger, and still lived in Lover’s Rock, a passing witch-hunter had accused her of being an abomination in the eyes of the gods, and of sleeping with the Eldest One besides. Fortunately, before he could actually drag her off to be tried by a clerical court, an angry mob of local Turonim had set upon the fellow, from whom he had been rescued by the limitanei only to be arrested for disturbing the peace. Miranda had, in all modesty, been rather gratified by the way that so many of those she had helped with their ailments and injuries were willing to stand up in court and testify to her good character. The witch-hunter had been sent to the arena, where he had had the bad luck to be put up against Michael. It was the one time, Miranda recalled, where she had been able to watch her brother fight with nought but pride; it was the one time when all of his Firstborn pretensions and mocked up Old Corona chivalry had seemed like more than pathetic childish play-acting. It was the one time in Miranda’s life that Michael had actually seemed like the hero he always pretended to be.
Miranda returned her attention to the guardsman in front of her. “Has it occurred to you, Guardsman, that the priests of the Novar Church are less interested in your immortal soul than they are in their power over you in the here and now?”
Lucius frowned. “No.”
“No, I don’t suppose it has,” Miranda replied. “Suffice it to say that I will not believe that I was born evil, or that any part of the way that I was born is innately evil, and must be shut away for the good of all.”
“If the other lads saw you doing things like that right now, they might not like it,” Lucius said.
Miranda looked at him. “Do you believe I killed those men?”
Lucius’ eyes flicked first one way, then the other, never quite meeting hers. “No ma’am.”
“No living man killed Gaius and Publius,” Remus said solemnly. While Lucius lounged, Remus stood to attention, shield in one hand and the other upon the hilt of his sword.
“You really think it was the gods or something?” Lucius said, trying and mostly failing to sound incredulous to the very notion.
“They were judged,” Remus said. “Their hands were put in the scales. Judged for their deeds, and found guilty and deserving of death.”
“Perhaps,” Miranda said softly. “But judgement need not imply an immortal judge. There are plenty of mortals who might wish to judge them.”
“Enough in one place at one time to hold down two men and silence them before anyone could find out?” Remus asked. “And strong enough to burn them from the inside? Who could do that?”
“It’s true that I’ve not seen any mortal do such a thing,” Miranda said. Although I’ve done worse. “But at the same time I’ve not seen a god do it either.” And I’ve met one of those, too.
“It’s judgement,” Remus said obstinately. “I can feel it in my bones. Judgement from the divine.”
“Judgement for what?” Lucius asked, his voice trembling audibly now. “What had Gaius and Publius done? They seemed alright to me.”
“They were in Oretar, same as me and Gabinius and the Sergeant Major and half the men here,” Remus replied. “We all did things in those mountains enough to earn the Black Abyss. You mark my words, a reckoning has arrived.”
“From who?” Miranda demanded. “What god still intervenes in the affairs of mortal men like this?” Apart from Silwa, of course, but this doesn’t seem like her style at all. “And why now, so many years after the war ended?” She knew a little of what Remus was talking about when he referred to the sins that he and his fellow soldiers had committed during the Oretine War, Ascanius and Julian had told her enough to get some idea of what black acts the soldiers of the Empire had done to survive and win out over the rebellion that mountain folk had waged. But the only justice for Oretar that Miranda had ever witnessed had been the work of a man, Lysimachus Castra, stricken with guilt and possessed of powerful spirit magic.
And he had done things as powerful – and as terrible – as anything done to Gaius and Lucius. Was that the answer? Was there a powerful spirit warrior on the loose with a grudge over the Oretine War? Another powerful spirit warrior on the loose, rather? But then, why kill only two men? Lysimachus would have stormed the villa and killed everyone, and he would have done it without taking so much as a minor injury. Perhaps this other spirit warrior was not so powerful, but then it coul
d equally be evidence that there was no spirit warrior. But it was as plausible – more plausible, in Miranda’s opinion, than the idea that Ro or Tanuk had taken an interest in their affairs. At least she had actually seen spirit warriors behaving this way in the past.
“Perhaps you can answer that, Filia Miranda,” Remus said, his slow, deep voice rousing her from her reverie.
Miranda blinked. “I don’t know what you mean?”
“You ask why now. You ask why us,” Remus said. “It seems to me that you’ve done things that make each of us like an ant by comparison.”
Miranda frowned. “If that is the case then why not come after me?”
“Because we’re looking after you, Filia,” Lucius said.
Miranda snorted, “Very gallant of you, guardsman, but I doubt it would deter the kind of immortal avenger that Remus has in mind.”
“No,” Remus said. “I reckon you don’t want to count yourself safe so soon, ma’am. Retribution is coming for all of us, and that includes you like as not.”
Retribution is coming. The memory of her nightmare made Miranda shiver.
“You’re using magic,” Octavia said as she emerged out of the front door onto the porch, her tawny wings flapping lazily behind her as she spread them out across the porch. “You haven’t done that in a while.”
“No,” Miranda said quietly. “Do you…approve?”
Octavia smiled, making her face light up in the process. “I think it’s great. I’m glad that you’re starting to use it again. You’ve been ignoring it for too long.”
“For good reason,” Miranda murmured.
Octavia’s face fell a little. “Yes but…Miranda, this is a part of you. I hate to see you neglecting it, or fearing it or even worse hating it.” She sat down beside Miranda, putting one strong but gentle arm around her. “I remember when you brought the first golem to life, how proud you looked. I remember how strong you seemed.”
Short Swords: Tales from the Divine Empire (The First Sword Chronicles Book 3) Page 2
